Thursday, March 28, 2024

Speak up, new Silent Generation

September 3, 2014
<p>Rich Vadasy</p>

Rich Vadasy

Our generation has been called many names. One label that really sticks out to me is the new Silent Generation.

Members of the original Silent Generation came before the baby boomers. They grew up from 1925 to 1945, a time when voicing opinions and beliefs wasn’t the norm. There was so much unrest within the United States over communist advances abroad, and people were wary of being labeled a communist by mistake. They were cautious about what they said and selective about the people they associated with.

The events that occurred during their time such as the Great Depression and World War II were significant, but the people were not.

It is understandable that they could be forgotten as a whole, given the events they were dealing with. But what is our generation’s excuse? We live in a relatively safe world. We have more freedom to speak and dissent than in years past or in other countries. Even so, our generation largely lives with a “someone else will do it” attitude, myself included. In a tough situation, we’re more likely to pull out our phones and start recording video than step in to help.

Though it happened last year, one incident involving a 12-year-old boy named Bailey O’Neill describes my point.

O’Neill attended an elementary school in Philadelphia. At recess one day, he was maliciously attacked by two of his classmates. He was left with a broken nose and concussion. He later suffered from several seizures and went into a medically induced coma. O’Neill was in a coma for one month, and the day after his 12th birthday, he died.

If his classmates had stepped in and stopped the situation, he would likely be alive today.

It’s sad that not even seeing a person being beaten can spur someone into action. We need to change this and get motivated.

We all have friends or know of people who sit around and do nothing — whether in terms of work or issues in society. They choose inaction instead of action because it’s the easier route.

Imagine living in a world filled with those kinds of people. It’s a world in which most would rather scrape by than speak out. A world where you can’t expect help from others because that would require effort.

Of course, not everyone in our generation falls under this stereotype, but unfortunately, we’re defined by the people who do. We need to be more motivated and passionate to get out of that rut.

Francis Fukuyama, an American political scientist, wrote a book titled “The End of History and the Last of Man.” In it, he proposes that history ended in 1989 after the Cold War because democracy is too powerful to challenge again. Maybe Fukuyama is right about history ending, but for other reasons. History can still be created outside the political realm, but perhaps our generation is just too lazy to make more of it. Hopefully someone else will.

Rich Vadasy is a State News intern. Reach him at opinion@statenews.com

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